The embryonic chick has been used as an in vivo model for the investigation of a number of biological systems for over a century. It is noted for its simplicity, availability, immune-deficient properties, and for the highly vascularized structure of the Chorioallantoic Membrane (CAM).
Many in vivo systems, particularly model systems for studying human tissues and organs, require transplanting an examined graft into an immune compromised animal, in order to avoid graft rejection. Such animals, for example, Severe Combined Immune Deficient (SCID) mice, are expensive, sickly and hard to maintain.
The avian egg provides a low cost and readily available alternative to in vivo testing upon sentient animals. The avian egg has been used in growth of viruses for vaccine generation, angiogenesis assays, teratogenicity testing, tumor cells and the like.
Such assays may be performed on the embryos, or on microbes, cells and tissues grafted, injected or applied to fertilized avian eggs. For example, the Hen's Egg Test-Chorioallantoic Membrane (HET-CAM) assay is a well-known method for screening the irritancy potential of topically applied compositions such as cosmetics.
However, such procedures are generally performed manually, are labor intensive and are not practical on the large scale. Furthermore, because there is human intervention when handling the eggs as well as in the sampling and analysis of the assays, these procedures are not easily repeatable. It is therefore difficult to produce large numbers of identical eggs and assays to be used for statistical analysis.
It will be appreciated, therefore, that there is a need for an automated process for producing biotechnological assays. The system and method described herein address this need.